So it looks to me as if BIND is blocking external requests in some way or there is something else preventing external requests. I have tried telneting to port 53 on the machine (from outside) and a connection is established.

If any one knows what could be causing this I would appreciate the help!!

Bind is obviously aware of the fact that it is hosting both domains (from the confirm files) and lookups on the machine itself work fine. I'm presuming its something to do with external requests as I said before.